Where have I been?

I've been deep in the dissertation desert lately, but I heard this line recently, reminding me of more carefree days:

"The path to excess leads to the tower of wisdom."

(Sigh)

For God and... ?

Ripped from the headlines... of the Milan (Michigan) News (ref).

Businessman completes 'rescue mission'
Don Kleinschmidt restores military display at Pioneer High School

I was scanning for news from around Ann Arbor when this item caught my attention. The name Kleinschmidt seemed to stir some memory inside.... What was it?

Then I remembered: Kleinschmidt used to be the name of an insurance company off Huron and Ashley, and its parking lot always seemed the sweetest of forbidden fruits. Ideally located between the Ann Arbor nightspots on Main and 1st, the lot had no gate to shoo you away, just a sign that warned you your car might be towed.

"Does that apply to just business hours or off-hours too? What are the chances? I mean, look at all these other cars." The discussion was maddening, but that didn't stop us from having it every time. (This was before I learned that the good people of Brewer's troll the lots of their clients looking for cars to tow.)

My memory spurred, I continued reading: This Mr. Kleinschmidt (who may or may not be connected to the insurance company) had found a tribute to servicemen alumni of his old high school tucked away in a janitor's closet. He then spent five years (one would assume off and on) working to restore the display which can now be seen once again in the hallways of Pioneer.

I really found the article compelling, or at least I did until I got to the end when it quoted one of Mr. Kleinschmidt's friends:

As an U.S. Army veteran, I can tell you that a tribute of this nature is an emotionally moving project. In the armed services you become aware of people that would sacrifice their life for their county and it's most fitting that those who died to preserve liberty are recognized and remembered. Their young lives ended so we could live ours to the fullest and we should never forget that.

You might want to read that again.

Here, I'll help:

...you become aware of people that would sacrifice their life for their county...

This little gaffe woke the cynic in me. I always like to think I'd lay down my life for country or fellow man if the situation arose, but would I do it for... Washtenaw County? Somehow it just doesn't seem the same. But, as Depeche Mode once said, "people are people," right? Why would it matter whether they're Americans or Washtenawnians?

Ann Arbor, to the tune of "Roxanne"

Like a scorned lover coming back for more, I'm forced to admit: I find Ann Arbor pretty sometimes.

Tonight I wound up in Gallup Park, the unwitting captive of my friend JC's whim to take a walk after she bought me dinner. Oh fine, I thought.

But standing on the bridge that crosses the river in the park, watching the sun set upstream, even I started feeling the spirit of John Muir (ref):

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.

Shy of nine, the sun disappeared behind a cloister of trees:


In the river's reflection, clouds became nebulae and air bubbles stars:


The illusion of stars was more apparent looking straight down into the water:


A kayaker passed underneath the bridge, rippling the water behind her.


And lily pads clustered in the shallows.


Snapping these pictures, I almost forgave Ann Arbor for her six-month winters.... The times I breathed her cold air and felt her needly frost-tips in my lungs. The times I slipped on her ice sheets and feared for my bones. The times her winds seared me at the bus stop like I was a piece of raw tuna.... Like I said, almost forgave.

I keep hoping she'll change, but even if she doesn't, I'll probably keep coming back anyway.

Happy Marry-Who-You-Want Day!

Well, not exactly.

But it is the 40th anniversary of the so-called Loving Decision making today Loving Day.

Seems bizarre now, but before 1967, certain states (okay, Southern states) forbade mixed-race couples from marrying. The rationale often invoked God and comprised a dangerous mix of alchemical logic and selective readings from the Bible, as in this ruling by Circuit Court Judge Leon Bazile:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay, and red and placed them on separate continents.... The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

Caught up in this were Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter, a black woman and a white man who'd married in Washington D.C. Upon returning to Virginia, they found themselves in violation of the state's Racial Integrity Act of 1924 then sentenced to one year in prison.

In contesting the ruling, the Lovings gave the Supreme Court the opportunity to strike down Virginia's statute -- in the so-called Loving Decision -- opening the doors for mixed-race marriages nationwide.

The tide was going in that direction anyway, like when the Florida Supreme Court decided three years earlier that a white person and a black person could be in the same room together (McLaughlin v. Florida). But without Loving, the tide might have taken longer to get here. Who knows -- it might not even be here today.

My borrowed summer

This summer, as I've been finishing up research projects and getting ready to defend, I've had the nagging feeling I've been living here on borrowed time. Nothing's provided a clearer sign of that than what I'm seeing around town -- summer in full, blinding bloom. Things that I saw in the past and forgot about spur my memory and harry me when I see them again.

Here are some of those things:

• Camera-toting tourists snapping pictures of the fountain in front of Rackham


• Folder-toting freshmen getting oriented to North Campus


• The sun dusking through my westward windows
  


• Tents going up for Summer Festival


• Blackberry stains on the cement


• Friends on the move


• Kids everywhere


• My tan

Alack, my lack of alacrity!

Somehow seems apt

'Cause I'm a man, not a boy
And there are things you can't avoid
You have to face them
When you're not prepared to face them

-- from "Fight Test" by The Flaming Lips

In the restroom at Ashley's

Coffee shop dilemma

Here's a situation I found myself in last weekend: You're sitting in a coffee shop, laptop out and doing work, with a cup of coffee on the table, and suddenly need to use the restroom.

What do you do?

Let's assume you didn't bring a laptop lock with you.

You could:

1. Quaff the coffee, pack up your stuff, and bring your stuff with you into the restroom (denying yourself the enjoyment of a slowly sipped coffee)


2. Bring the coffee along with your stuff into the restroom (exposing your coffee to undesirable restroom air)


3. Suck it up (just decide not to use the restroom to the possible medical detriment of your vejiga urinaria)


4. Ask someone to watch your stuff and then go to the restroom

I think most of us would go with D, and I was about to myself, until I stopped and thought about it.

Consider this: If I can trust one stranger enough to watch my stuff, why can't I trust all strangers and E, leave my stuff there and go to the restroom?

You could even make the case that asking one stranger to watch your stuff puts you in even worse position than just getting up and leaving your stuff. Now said stranger knows you'll be away and incapacitated for a good minute or so. That's a minute in which he (or she) could snatch your belongings (with your simulations and thesis stored on them -- oh wait, that's just me) and run out the door with nary a trace.

At least if you just get up and leave your stuff, you might be making a call or getting a sugar packet or better yet a napkin, keeping an eye on your stuff the whole time. You might be coming right back, and who wants to mess with Irate Napkin Guy?

I was really working up a mental lather over the whole thing and thought I'd hit on one of those situations that exemplifies how bizarre modern life gets sometimes. I pictured writing a novel based on the incident -- about a guy, no, a PhD student, whose life could have gone any of five ways based on what he decided to do here. There'd be a book tour, movie rights, hanging out with Paris Hilton, the works.

But by the time I decided to ask the stranger at the next table to watch my stuff, RW arrived and sat down across from me. Ah, the sixth option. That made the moint poot.

No new posts... why?

The two or three of you who are regular visitors to Stew's Blues may have noticed that I haven't posted anything in a while. Truth is, I've been busy trying to finish up the thesis (defense date 7/11!) and apply for jobs, postdoctoral and non.

In fact, I've been so "in my head" lately that I've noticed that the mental checklist I go through in the morning has changed. As I was biking out of the apartment parking lot this morning, I realized the new checklist went like this:

• Pants on? Check.

I literally looked down and checked. Now, I'm not shy about my body, but even I think it would have been hard to explain why I was arriving on campus pants-less. ("Oh, I thought it was Casual Wednesday?")

Contrast the new checklist with the old:

• Stove off? Check.

I did take a moment, however, to notice that the weather in Ann Arbor today is beautiful. Google says 72 and sunny, so if you're here, I hope you're able to get out there and enjoy it!